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FARM LABOR PROGRAM, 1943

HEARINGS CONDUCTED BY THE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IN CHARGE OF DEFICIENCY APPROPRIATIONS, MESSRS. CLARENCE CANNON (CHAIRMAN), CLIFTON A. WOODRUM, LOUIS LUDLOW, J. BUELL SNYDER, EMMET O'NEAL, LOUIS C. RABAUT, JED JOHNSON, JOHN TABER, RICHARD B. WIGGLESWORTH, WILLIAM P. LAMBERTSON, AND J. WILLIAM DITTER, ON THE DAYS FOLLOWING, NAMELY:

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1943.

FARM LABOR PROGRAM

STATEMENTS OF HON. CLAUDE R. WICKARD, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE; J. O. WALKER, CHIEF, AGRICULTURAL LABOR BRANCH, FOOD PRODUCTION ADMINISTRATION; R. LYLE WEBSTER, ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE; M. CLIFFORD TOWNSEND, ADMINISTRATOR, FOOD PRODUCTION ADMINISTRATION; MEREDITH C. WILSON, CHIEF, DIVISION OF FIELD STUDIES AND TRAINING, EXTENSION SERVICE; MILTON P. SIEGEL, CHIEF FISCAL OFFICER, FOOD PRODUCTION ADMINISTRATION; DAN. M. BRAUM, SENIOR TRAINING SPECIALIST, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL; AND RICHARD W. MAYCOCK, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF FINANCE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

RECRUITING, PLACEMENT, TRANSPORTATION, ETC.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, we have before us an estimate in House Document No. 106, in the amount of $65,075,000, for the farm-labor program, in an item which is as follows:

For expenses necessary for the formulation, development, and execution, under the supervision and direction of the Secretary of Agriculture, and either independently or in cooperation with indiIviduals or agencies, public or private, of a plan to assist in providing an adequate supply and distribution of labor, including sharecroppers and tenants (including aliens), for the production of agricultural commodities essential to the prosecution of the war, including (1) recruiting, placement, and transportation of such labor within the continental United States and elsewhere, including transportation of their families and household effects; (2); furnishing, by loans. grants, or otherwise, of medical services, training, subsistence, and shelter; (3) construction or lease and operation of labor supply centers and other necessary facilities and

services; (4) employment of persons (including aliens) and organizations, by contract or otherwise, at the seat of government and elsewhere; (5) purchase, exchange, operation, and maintenance of passenger-carrying vehicles; (6) printing and binding; (7) acceptance and utilization of voluntary and uncompensated services; and (8) travel expenses of persons employed in administrative, supervisory, or facilitating capacities from a foreign country to the United States and return, including such expenses to first-duty stations, fiscal year 1943, $65,075,000, to remain available until December 31, 1943: Provided, That expenditures may be made hereunder without regard to section 3709, Revised Statutes: Provided further, That whenever labor shall be furnished hereunder to any other agency, public or private, or individual, this appropriation shall be reimbursed for expenditures on account of wages paid to such labor and other expenditures in connection therewith to the extent which the Secretary may determine to be practicable: Provided further, That effective July 1, 1943, notwithstanding section 3 of the Act of June 29, 1936 (40 Ú. S. C. 433), receipts derived for the account of the United States from the use and occupancy of labor supply centers, including camps and facilities heretofore used by or under the control of the Farm Security Administration, shall be deposited in the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts: Provided further, That transfers may be made, with the approval of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, from this appropriation to any bureau or office of the Department of Agriculture, or to any other agency of the Government, which is assigned functions in connection herewith, in addition to the transfers authorized by the Department of Agriculture Appropriation Acts for the fiscal years 1943 and 1944: Provided further, That any payments made by the United States or private employers to aliens under this program shall not be subject to deduction or withholding under section 143 (b) of the Internal Revenue Code..

$65, 075, 000

The CHAIRMAN. We should be glad to have a statement from you on this item, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary WICKARD. As I have so often stated to congressional committees, I regard the farm labor problem as the most difficult one facing us in meeting the food-production goals for 1943: We feel that we must take every step to meet that problem, out of available labor, as efficiently as we possibly can.

This supplemental appropriation is designed to meet a part of the farm-labor problem, particularly the transportation of farm labor and the training of farm labor for work in 1943.

TRANSPORTATION OF FARM WORKERS

The greater part of the funds that are asked for in this budget message will be devoted to the transportation of farm workers.

We have thus far used funds made available to us from the President's emergency fund for transporting the farm workers, including Mexican workers as well as domestic workers.

We feel that we have proven, not only this year but in years past, that it was the proper thing to do, to transport farm workers from one section to the other in order that their labor be more fully utilized.

In the months that lie ahead we feel that we should not let farm workers remain idle any more days than necessary. The only way to avoid that is to transfer them from one section to the other as the needs arise, for planting and cultivating and harvesting of crops. We are planning to bring in several thousand more Mexican laborers, especially for the Southwest; California, Arizona, and other areas also, for sugar-beet and other production.

We are planning and have now already moved farm workers to Florida for the harvesting of fruits, and the planting of crops in that area. We know as the spring season opens up that there will be increasing demands for us to transport workers to areas where there is a deficit of labor.

Mr. TABER. Where do you propose to get them and where do you propose to take them?

Secretary WICKARD. We propose to get them wherever they can be recruited. We are getting workers for Florida, I believe for the most part, in some of the surrounding States; Tennessee, I believe, and Mississippi.

Mr. TABER. I would like to have you tell us who is going to have charge of this, in your Department?

Secretary WICKARD. The Farm Security Administration will do the transportation as they have in the past.

RECRUITMENT OF VOLUNTEER WORKERS

The greatest number of people that will be affected, perhaps, by this appropriation, will be the number that we can enlist in the towns and the cities and the villages nearby, where the need for workers will

occur.

We are planning, through the Extension Service, to carry on recruitment of volunteer workers who will be paid, of course, the usual wage, but who will be willing to do this type of work, even though it may mean departing from their usual civilian activities.

They are going to appeal to the school people, the church people, and to the service clubs, chambers of commerce, and all those organizations, to help them in this mobilization.

As a matter of fact, they have already made their plans. We have had conferences here in Washington and I believe the State directors. of extention in every State are actively engaged in laying their plans for this type of work. Also, the Extension Service and the colleges will help us in training workers, giving them short training for whatever work and in whatever time conditions will permit. This training will all, I believe, be in cooperation with the Office of Education.

That is about all I have to say, except again to repeat the urgency of this appropriation in order that we can meet the acute farm labor problem that is developing.

SHORTAGE OF FARM LABOR

The CHAIRMAN. What is the farm labor situation today as compared with that of a year ago, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary WICKARD. There are less workers on the farms today. The CHAIRMAN. How many less?

Secretary WICKARD. I believe about 200,000. That is as of February 1, compared with any other year of which we have records. The CHAIRMAN. Is that distributed generally all over the country, or is it localized?

Secretary WICKARD. I should say it was pretty generally distributed. Mr. TOWNSEND. It is really more acute near the war industries. Secretary WICKARD. The worst thing about that, Mr. Chairman, is that it is not just the total number; that is, the difference between what we have now and what we usually have. Now we are dipping

into the number of people who stay on farms the year round and who are better-trained people. I am not talking about the number of people who are known as seasonal workers, but the year-round type of labor, which are included in these numbers. That is the alarming part of the situation.

The CHAIRMAN. There you are striking at the crux of the situation; you are putting your finger right on the point, Mr. Secretary. The remedy for this is not to take key men from the farms, in the draft. No man who is essential to farm labor should be taken of the farm. He is more valuable behind the plow than behind the machine gun, when other men can handle the machine gun, who cannot handle the plow. I believe you will agree it takes considerable training to qualify a man for labor on the farm, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary WICKARD. Of course, it depends on the type of farm labor, but for the year-round management of farms, it takes a lifetime of experience, and then you never learn everything, as I have found out.

The CHAIRMAN. And the man who enjoys farming and wants to stay there, and is accustomed to rural life, is the man to keep on the farm?

Secretary WICKARD. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, we cannot take a man off the farm who has been trained all of his life to farm work, whose interest is there, and whose future is there, and put him in the Army; and then put in his place a ribbon salesman, or a soda clerk, and expect the same amount of production.

Secretary WICKARD. Especially on livestock farms, places like that, where you have to have long experience and training.

METHODS FOR KEEPING EXPERIENCED FARM LABOR ON THE FARMS

The CHAIRMAN. What has been done to keep the men on the farm who ought to be kept there?

Secretary WICKARD. The first specific action was taken by the War Manpower Commission after I requested that specific action be taken to defer the essential farm workers on livestock, dairy, and poultry farms. I believe that action was taken in September or October of last year. A few months later Senator Tydings offered his amendment, which was adopted, under which we worked out a plan for classifying essential farm workers into separate classes. The single farm workers now are put into 2-C. The men with dependents are put into 3-C. The greatest advantage of that, outside of actually deferring those men, giving them a preferential treatment which no other industry has, is to change, as I understand it, the quota for an agricultural county, which ordinarily is built upon the number of men in class 1-A.

ACTION OF DRAFT BOARDS AFFECTING FARM LABOR

The CHAIRMAN. Notwithstanding the action which you have taken to keep labor on the farm, to exempt farm laborers from the draft, in certain classes of essential farming, our reports from the field are that local draft boards are paying no attention to those directives; that they continue to take essential men from farms producing livestock, poultry, and dairy products vitally needed in the war program.

Within the last week they have taken out of my own county men whose absence from the farm means a reduced production of vital food products this crop year. While you have given them every opportunity to exempt needed farm labor, they are not exemptir g it.

Secretary WICKARD. I believe under the law these local boards are autonomous, are they not? Did not Congress provide that in the law?

The CHAIRMAN. That is true, and we are faced with a critical situation in which they are still taking them from the farms.

Secretary WICKARD. That is too bad, and I regret very much to hear it. I do not know what all the instructions have been, but those that we have seen are very specific on how they should leave these people on the farm.

Here is what we are up against. Some of these draft boards say that they have to choose between taking a man with dependents, or a single man working on a farm. It puts them in a pretty uncomfortable position.

Mr. TABER. Some of those local draft boards have been construing these instructions rather liberally, as far as farmers are concerned, and some of them have been construing them the other way. That is 'correct, is it not?

Secretary WICKARD. That is correct.

Mr. TABER. I get that in my own district. Some of them do very well and some of them do not. Your trouble is with your local boards. Whether the appeal boards are any better, I do not know. I have not found that they were, as yet.

The CHAIRMAN. They should give them less latitude.

Mr. TABER. Yes.

WAR MANPOWER COMMISSION'S DIRECTIVE CONCERNING FARM LABOR

The CHAIRMAN. Will you put into the record at this point, Mr. Secretary, the directive authorizing you to take over this work and in that connection distinguish between your jurisdiction and the jurisdiction of Mr. McNutt's organization?

Secretary WICKARD. That directive I have from Mr. McNutt's organization. I have the text of it right here. Do you want me to read it?

The CHAIRMAN. We will insert it verbatim in the record at this point, and you may give us orally the gist of it.

WAR MANPOWER COMMISSION

(Directive XVII)

FARM LABOR MOBILIZATION RESPONSIBILITIES IN DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

By virtue of the authority vested in me by Executive Orders Nos. 9139 and 9279, and having found, after consultation with the members of the War Manpower Commisison, that the measures hereinafter set forth will promote a more effective mobilization and utilization of the farm labor resources in the prosecution of the war through a more complete use of the facilities and personnel of the Department of Agriculture, it is hereby directed:

I. The Secretary of Agriculture, through such persons and employees (including uncompensated personnel) of the Department of Agriculture as he may designate and subject to policies and standards prescribed by the Chairman of the War Manpower Commission, and to the continuous review and appraisal of the War Manpower Commission, shall have full operating responsibility for the recruitment, placement, transfer, and utilization of agricultural workers, to the end that the labor requirements of agricultural production may be met.

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